


I Love You, Even When You're Pain In The Ass

by SincerityExtreme



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:54:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28321209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SincerityExtreme/pseuds/SincerityExtreme
Summary: This is my first attempt at writing a Avalance fic, I kinda of liked it but because it's my first try I don't have a base so I don't know what to think, but I hope everyone loves it, let me know what you think of it please!Prompt: Angst with happy ending, AU of season 6 after they saved Sara and she gets nightmares every night and Ava helps her to get through them. Thanks RennyWilson for the prompt!
Relationships: Sara Lance/Ava Sharpe
Comments: 8
Kudos: 43





	I Love You, Even When You're Pain In The Ass

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RenLuthor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RenLuthor/gifts).



Sara woke up with a gasp. Sitting up she looked around for a few seconds and calmed down slightly when she saw her girlfriend laying beside her.

“You ok?” Ava asked, voice thick with sleep and eyes still closed.

“I'm fine.” She replied and laid back down.

“Nightmares again?”

“Yeah but I'm fine.” She sighed and closed her eyes.

“You keep saying that but we haven’t gotten a full night of sleep since we rescued you from that… place, I don’t even know what to call it.”

“I can go to another room if you want and come back here every morning so we can shower and have breakfast together. Or you can go back to your apartment at night and come here every morning, whatever you prefer.” She said without opening her eyes.

“You know that’s not what I meant, I want you here, I can’t sleep without you by my side anyway. I'm just worried about you.” Ava said and touched Sara’s face to get the woman to look at her.

“You going soft on me Sharpe?” Sara looked up with a tiny and tired smile.

“Never.” She laughed softly. “But seriously babe, I'm really worried, you haven’t slept in almost an entire week! You’re the captain of this ship, you need to get a good night of sleep in order to run it properly.”

“I said I'm fine, please drop it and lets go back to sleep?”

“Fine, but you only won this time because it's 4am and we need to be up in 2 hours.”

“Thank you.”

A week passed and exhaustion was slowly taking its toll on Sara Lance’s life. It started with her mood, she just didn’t had the energy to make her usual jokes and also couldn’t handle her team playing around while they’re supposed to be working, they’re all used to it but right now all Sara wanted was to get the job done and go back to the ship to try and get some sleep before the next emergency. Then it started to affect her skills, she wasn’t as quick anymore, her kicks weren’t as high and her punches weren’t as strong, making her an easy target when compared to how she used to fight. Eventually she just gave up on sleeping at night and simply laid on the bed long enough for Ava to fall asleep, then she got up and found stuff to do around the ship until it was morning and she had to go back to her and Ava’s room to get into bed before her girlfriend woke up.  
By the end of the second week, her body could barely hold her up, she snapped at everyone who tried to speak to her about anything not related to work and she didn’t know what to do anymore.

“You’re exhausted, let’s go to bed. Come on, work will still be here in the morning.” Ava walked into the library and walked towards the desk she was working on and tried to get her to stand up.

“I need to finish this.” Sara said without looking up from the book she was reading.

“You can finish tomorrow, let’s go.” The director took the book away from her and placed it on the table.

“Ava, no-” Sara tried to stop her when she tried to also grab the notebook she had on her lap and the pen she was using to write.

“Will I have to carry you there? You know I can.”

“You wouldn’t dare…” Sara stared up at her girlfriend with an raised eyebrow trying to intimidate her.

“You know damn well I would, and I will if you don’t move.”  
Sara stood still with crossed arms and a smirk.

“Alright then, you asked for it.” Ava effortlessly picked Sara up and started walking to their bedroom.

“Hey, put me down Alright? You won, I'm going.” Sara tapped Ava’s shoulder and started kicking her legs slightly when she wasn’t placed back on the floor. “Come on, let me go, I'm an freaking ninja assassin, captain of an entire time traveling ship, I can’t be seen like this!”

“Stop squirming around, we’re here.” She lowered Sara back to the floor and closed the room doors. “And no one saw us, it’s late so everyone is on their rooms, most of them asleep.”

“Just don’t do that again.”

“I won’t as long as you start to listen to me. Now please, let’s sleep, I'm exhausted.”

“I'm not tired, I’ll stay here until you fall asleep but I need to work.”

“Nope, I want you here on the bed with me, I miss you.”

“But I'm not tired.”

“Alright, then don’t go to sleep but come lay with me please.”

“Ava-”

“Do I need to pout?”

“That’s the oldest trick on the book and I would never fall for it.”

“Really?” She pouted and slowly blinked her eyes at Sara.

“That’s so stupid.” Sara rolled her eyes.

“It’s working, isn’t it?” Ava asked while still pouting and trying to hold back a laugh.

“Shut up.”

“It’s so is.” Ava laughed.

“Stop or I'll leave.” Sara crossed her arms and looked away to hide her laugh.

“Okay, okay. Come on now.”

“I'm not sleeping though, I'm not tired.”

“Whatever you want, just stay here with me, it’s late.”

Sara fought with her exhaustion for almost an hour before it took over her and she fell asleep.  
She started moving around a bit over 2 hours later, the whimpering a few minutes after. Ava woke up when her whines turned into desperate cries for help.

“Sara? Wake up baby.”

“What you want from me?”

“Hey, it’s just a nightmare. Come on honey, wake up for me.”

“Let me go, please…”

“You’re safe Sara, come back to me, come on.” She placed a hand on Sara’s chest and put a slight pressure there to see if that was enough to wake her back up. They did that sometimes when calling for the other’s name wasn’t enough. “I'm right here with you, come back to me, please!”  
With a loud cry Sara woke up, opening her eyes wide open and sitting up trying to move away from Ava.  
“Hey hey, it’s just me, you’re ok.”

“I'm sorry. I'm fi-”

“Don’t even start. You’re not fine and that’s ok. Tell me what you need.”

“Nothing.” Sara ran both hands across her face a few times to dry the tears sitting on her cheek.

“Sara, stop that, you know you can talk to me.”

“I told you I didn’t want to go to sleep!” She snapped.

“You’re tired, you needed to get rest.”

“No! I said I was fine and that I wasn’t tired, I just wanted to keep working but you just couldn’t leave me to it. You never do, you always act like you know better than everyone and treat me like a child.”

“Sara look, I didn’t mean to hurt you, but I know you haven’t been sleeping at all this entire week, can’t you see what that is doing to you? Everyone is scared of talking to you because you keep snapping at them, we haven’t spent any time together at all, we barely even talk to each other. Honey, this can’t go on for much longer, sooner or later your body will give up on you and if that happens during a fight… I can’t even think about it. Just, please, you need to rest!”

“What do you want from me, huh? Do you think I'm doing this for fun? That I have been up for practically two weeks because I enjoy the feeling of being exhausted and not being able to do my own job right? Is that it?”

“Hey, calm down, that’s not what I meant and you know it. I'm just trying to help but sometimes I feel like you're pushing me away.”

“You can’t help with this, I’ve been dealing with nightmares most of my life, I just need time to get used to these ones and then life will hey back to normal.”

“But Sara-”

“No 'buts', if you can’t handle it then just go back to your apartment. That’s my life, I have work to do and a ship to run, I can’t have these stupid conversations every day because you want me to be normal.”

“At what moment did I said that, exactly? I don’t remember asking you to be 'normal'. Look at me for God sakes, why would I ask you to be normal when I'm me?” Her voice went up a notch but she was still trying to keep calm as she spoke. “And what does being normal even means anyway? That's not something that is actually real, it's made up. Sara, I don’t want you to be anything but yourself, what I was trying to say is that we need to do something because you can’t go weeks without any sleep. And you shouldn’t have to get used to these nightmares, you deserve better than that.”

“No, I don’t, and you know that. If we stop to think about everything that I did, then we’ll see that this is not nearly punishment enough.”

“Don’t say that, we’ve talked about this so many times. You’ve already paid for the bad things you did, you’ve changed and proven yourself to everyone who really matters so your past is not relevant anymore. I’ve said this a hundred times already but I'll say it a hundred more if you need me to.”

“Don’t waste your time, I can’t make myself believe that, I hurted too many people.”

“I understand it’s hard, but I'm willing to keep trying until you do.”

“You’re too good for me, I don’t know how to deal with it…”

“Just accept it and eventually it'll feel natural.”

“I don’t… I don’t know, I need to be alone right now.”

“Sara, come on-”

“No, please just leave me alone.”

“I'm just trying to help you.”

“I said, leave me alone!”

“Alright, okay, don’t be nervous I'm going. Just promise me you'll try to get some rest and will call me if something happens.”

“I'll try.”

“It doesn’t matter what time it is, if you need me you can call and I'll open a portal here immediately.”

“Just go Ava.” Sara said coldly and laid back on the bed.  
The taller blonde got up and opened a portal back to her apartment. She looked back one last time and saw Sara curled up on her side but she couldn’t see her face as she had her back to her.  
“I love you.” She said and entered the portal, leaving Sara behind while blinking back the tears that had welled up in her eyes.

Sara sat up as soon as she heard Ava’s portal closing. She brought her knees up to her chest and wrapped both arms around it, crying as silently as she could. She hated whenever she got like this, this many emotions made her feel weak and she couldn’t afford that.  
Fear was the strongest feeling, it was almost overwhelming, all the memories running through her mind, mercilessly crushing her energy and haunting her sleep. It had been so long since she had last slept a full night, she couldn’t even remember it anymore, and she knew that was starting to get to her. Snapping at her team, at her girlfriend, getting beat up by any random villain they faced, it was all enraging for her but she was so exhausted she didn’t know what to do about it.  
Her thoughts were running wild, her chest was starting to feel tight and even though she knew what those things meant, denying it was always her first instinct. “I'm too old for this.” She told herself, but the feeling of tightness in her chest, the short and quick breaths didn’t seemed like they’re going to leave anytime soon, so Sara decided to try and go grab some water, maybe that would calm her down and she would be able to go back to her room and busy her mind with some work.  
Making it to the kitchen, she grabbed a bottle of water and drank as much as she could, but nothing felt different, in fact everything felt worse. With the lights off, the small kitchen they had in the ship looked like the room she was kept in when she was abducted.  
She tried to run out but the voices that she heard back on that ship were shouting so loudly in her mind that she couldn’t focus on anything else. The bottle suddenly fell from her trembling hands and her vision got so blurry she couldn’t see where she was going anymore and just dropped to floor, dragging herself until her back hitted a wall.  
“Captain Lance, I’m sensing an alarming increase in your heart rate, perhaps you should…”

“Shut up Gideon!” Sara snapped, she needed silence to think.  
Sara knew she needed help, it was obvious that at this point there was nothing she could do to calm herself down. Asking for help really wasn’t her thing, she has always been so independent and she took pride in doing everything by herself. But that was obviously not happening this time, she needed to call for someone, but who? After how mean she had been to her team, she couldn’t wake any of them up to ask for help. There was just 1 person who could be there quick enough to help her, the person who was trying to help her just a couple hours ago before she sent her away too.  
“Gideon, Ava-” She was so out of breath it was hard speak. “Ca-call Ava!”

“Right away captain! Calling director Sharpe.”

“Hello?” Ava’s tired voice came through.

“Av-Ava-”

“Sara? What’s wrong?”

“H-help!”

“Ok, it's ok, I'm opening the portal right now. Where are you?”

“Kitchen…”

“I’ll be there in a few seconds.” She said and ended the call. “I'm here, I'm here!” Ava quickly knelt in front of Sara who was curled up on one of the corners close to cabinets. “What happened baby? Are you hurt?” The smaller woman shook her head. “Okay, can you move? Or would you rather stay here for a bit longer?”

“Here.”

“Alright then. Your breathing’s erratic, let’s try to slow it down, okay? Try to follow my breathing when you’re ready, in and out.” Ava placed a gentle hand on Sara’s chest again and kept it there until she felt the woman’s heartbeat starting to slow down. “That’s it, you’re doing great. Just keep breathing babe, I'm right here.”

“I'm sorry.” Sara said a few minutes later, face red with shame from being seen in this state.

“You don’t have to apologize, you didn’t do anything wrong.”

“This is so embarrassing.” Sara brought both knees up to her chest and hid her face.

“It’s not embarrassing, lots of people have panic attacks, and with your line of work it surprises me this is your first.” Ava said while caressing Sara’s back to see if the woman would lift her face.

“It's not my first ever, it’s just been a long time.” The smaller woman said and sighed before lifting her face. “This stupid nightmares! I'm so exhausted, Ava…” she was almost crying.

“I know honey, I know. Come here.” Ava wrapped both arms around Sara’s shaking body.

“I'm sorry I snapped at you, and I'm sorry I've been so distant lately.”

“Thank you, I forgive you.” She let go of Sara and got up. “Wanna go back to your room?” 

“Yes please.” She lifted both arms for Ava to pull her up. “Thank you for coming back to help me, I wasn’t sure you would after how I treated you.” She said as they started walking back to their bedroom.

“I'll always be here for you, even when you’re a little bit of a pain in the ass.” Ava smiled softly and dried the tears on Sara’s face. “I know you went through a lot, and I know it isn’t easy for you to not be able to solve your problems by yourself, I have a hard time with that too so you’ve probably been in the same position I'm in right now at some point. I love you, don’t you ever doubt that, got it?” Ava asked as she closed the bedroom doors.

“Got it. Thank you.” She softly kissed Ava’s lips and sat on her side of the bed. “What will we do about sleep though?”

“I'm not sure, what usually helps you when you have recurring nightmares?” Ava asked as she sat down on the opposite side of the bed.

“I don’t know, most of the times I just go and fight whatever demon that is hunting me, cause the problem is usually real, if you know what I mean, but this time it's memories and I don’t know how to fight this.”

“Alright, so how about, instead of fighting it, you allowed yourself to be vulnerable for a bit and talked to me about what you see in your dreams and how you felt during those moments? Talking about it is supposed to help us let go and be able to move on.” Ava tried.

“But-”

“Hey listen, before you snap at me, I want you to understand that you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. I won’t force you to talk to me, I'm really just trying to help but if you aren’t comfortable talking about it, then we’ll figure something else out.”

“I…” She paused and sighed. “Ok, I guess I can try to talk about it.”

“Good! Whenever you’re ready, there’s no rush, I have the day off tomorrow.” 

And so she did. After a few minutes preparing herself, Sara started talking, telling Ava everything she could remember about the place she was held on and the things she heard while she was there.  
The story was quite long but Ava sat there and paid attention to her every word. Her even eyes started to fill up with anxious tears at a certain point but she held strong until she was done telling her girlfriend everything she could remember.  
“I was so scared I wouldn’t be able to see you ever again!” She cried softly as she finally finished telling the story. “I didn’t know if my team had noticed I was gone and I was scared they would get hurt trying to get to me if they did. I didn’t know what to do, I was really scared and I'm not used to feeling scared.”

“I can’t even imagine how hard all that was for you, I'm so sorry you had to go through all of it.” Opening her arms, she softly pulled Sara to her chest, keeping her close in a tight hug. “I'm here with you though, and so is your team. We’re all okay, including you, we’ve got you back in one piece. It’s ok that you’re still worked up about it, it does sounded pretty traumatizing so I get it, you can talk to me about it whenever you need, ok? You can always come to me, let’s just try to do that before we reach this point.”

“Thank you. And I promise to try.”

“That’s good enough for me.”

“I have to apologize to everyone tomorrow, I was really mean to them, weren’t I?”

“A bit, they’re used to you joking around with them so you telling them to drop it and do their job right was a bit… different and a bit scary, I would say. I'm sure they understand though, just apologize and soon everything will go back to normal.”

“Normal?” Sara looked up with a smirk

“Well, Legends level of normal, you know what I mean.” Ava laughed softly.

“Yeah. I'm tired.”

“Me too, want to try to get some rest?”

“I don’t know.”

“It’s ok if you don’t want to right now but we’ll have to try sooner or later.”

“I know.” She sighed. “Let’s try, just don’t leave until I'm up. Wake me up if something happens and you need to go.”

“I will, pinky promise.”

“You still remember that? Oh my God.” They laughed. 

“You can wake me up too if something happens, I want to help.”

“Ok. Thank you again, for being so understanding.”

“Neither of us has an easy life, so it wouldn’t be fair to brush off your pain like as if it wasn’t real. That would be bad either way, no one has the right to judge someone else’s pain, but it’d be even worse for me to do it because I know how complicated everything is around here.”

“Well, I'm thankful anyway, not everyone understands or believes that. I love you!”

“I love you too!” She gave Sara a soft kiss and laid down on her pillow with a tired sigh. “Now close your eyes, let’s try to sleep.”  
Despite all the nervousness, exhaustion took over the both of them pretty quickly and for the first time in weeks, they slept through the night, no nightmares interrupting their much needed rest.  
Though things didn’t magically got better after that night, Sara started to accept help more easily and was even able to ask for help more often, which helped not only her but also her team, and slowly things started to go back to their normal.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed it!  
> English is not my first language so let me know if you notice any mistakes.  
> You can send me prompts on my tumblr: sincerity--extreme and tips on how i can improve on my writing are also welcome!


End file.
